Page 8 of Perfect Wives
Georgie rolls her eyes. ‘Exactly. You know Nate actually thinks he’s cool.’
‘He turns on the charm for them,’ Tasha snaps. ‘They see his flash car, his white teeth, his Rolex, not to mention the women that come and go, and they think he’s the ultimate bachelor.’
Tasha’s right. I think of Alistair and how he only sees what a great guy Jonny is. But Jonny is all charm and back slaps with the men in the close, and then something else entirely with the women. I hate the way I catch him looking at me from an upstairs window when I’m in the garden, tending to my vegetable patch.
We always try to be good neighbours in Magnolia Close. I love where we live. I love how it’s shut away from the rest of the world, like it’s our own little sanctuary. But I don’t know how much longer I can stand living next to a man like him. When he’s home, a low-level hum of unease thrums through my body. An anxiety I can’t shift. Some days, I want to scream with the unfairness of it. Alistair needs to be close to London. Our life is here. Our life is in Magnolia Close. We love our home and our community – our friends. We’ll never leave.
‘He said the football caught on his rose bush,’ Alistair said last night, completely ignoring the gaping knife wound in the ball.
‘Did you at least tell him to keep his music down in the evenings?’ I asked. ‘I can hear it in Henry’s room when I go in to check on him in the night.’
‘It’s not that bad,’ Alistair replied, a calming hand taking mine. ‘And he’s a music producer, Beth. He has to listen to it loud.’
At the table, I check my wrist for a hairband, find none and scoop my hair behind my ears instead. I know the long red waves are my best feature. It makes me seem more interesting than I really am. How many times have I heard the expression ‘a fieryredhead’ when I’m nothing like that? Too many. My hair is really just a distraction from the sharpness of my face. And skin so pale that Alistair can trace the veins with his finger. But right now, I’d give anything to tie it back. Just as I’d give anything to be home in the dog-print pyjamas I made myself for my birthday, curled into Alistair’s side, watching the latest detective series on Netflix.
Poor Alistair never gets the plot. He always has half a mind on whatever research project he’s undertaking or his students and the courses he teaches as a professor at the London School of Economics. I’m forever having to pause the show and explain the twists while he makes us both herbal tea.
If I was home, I could distract myself with TV or Alistair or knitting. Anything so I didn’t have to think about Jonny. I hate that he saw me that day seven months ago. It was March. I remember the daffodils swaying in the cool breeze as I made my way to the train station. I’d told Tasha and Georgie a white lie about a great-aunt’s funeral so they’d look after Henry for me after school for an hour. I thought I could get to my appointment and back without anyone knowing. The last person I expected to bump into that day was Jonny.
When I escape to the toilets again, just for a moment of peace and the cool water I dab on my cheeks, I return to find my wine glass is full to the top, the dark liquid nearly spilling over the rim. My friends haven’t noticed I’m not drinking it.
Keira’s jaw is tight, eyes narrowed as I take my seat again. ‘This Jonny sounds just like my ex, Richard. He’s making my life hell. I’m coming out of the divorce with next to nothing. He’s trying to take half my business. I have an online activewear shop that’s doing pretty well, so of course he wants a piece of that. And he’s even fighting me for joint custody of Rowan. That man has barely spent five minutes with his daughter in her whole life. He’s just doing it to hurt me. If only he’d die before we getto court, it would make my life so much easier.’ Keira’s accent is stronger in her anger, the rhotic R more pronounced. ‘But there’s nothing we can do about it,’ she continues. ‘We’re stuck living in a world where men like this are fucking up our lives.’
I flinch at the expletive, feeling like a prude as Keira catches the movement and quirks her eyebrow in a way that’s almost challenging.
She thinks you’re a fool.
I don’t care that Keira swore. I’m just so used to watching my words around Henry.
But before I can explain, Georgie jumps in. ‘We should do something. Really do something.’ The wine has left a dark stain on her inner lip. This time we don’t laugh.
Keira leans forward, elbows propped on the table. ‘You should kill him.’
FIVE
GEORGIE
Disrupt. Evolve. Own it.The mantra from my Instagram story this morning flashes through my mind as Keira’s words hit the table. Her lips are quirked up, like she’s fighting a smirk at the bomb she’s just detonated on our boring Tuesday night drinks in this sleepy local pub.
Of course she’s joking. She doesn’t really mean we should kill Jonny. Beth and Tasha’s faces – gaping mouths, wide eyes – though…the laughter bursts out of me, head thrown back, that full-belly, wild cackle – what Nate calls my witch’s laugh. The thought makes me laugh even more. And now they’re all giggling too, caught in it, like we’ve tipped over into a giddy hysteria we can’t control.
It consumes us. I can’t speak, can barely draw a breath. Beth is doubled over, head practically in her lap. I’ve never seen her like this before, and it only makes me laugh harder. Tears fall down Tasha’s beautiful face, her long black hair slipping out of her ponytail as she gasps for air. She waves her hands in front of her eyes, trying to stop the tears. But they’re happy tears, and it’s been so long since I’ve seen anything but strain and sadness in my friend.
Finally, the moment begins to ebb, and Tasha wipes her eyes. Beth straightens up, her cheeks almost the same colour as her hair. ‘We must sound like a pack of hyenas,’ she whispers, shooting a look across the bar.
‘Let them stare,’ Keira says at the exact moment I’m thinking the same. She picks up her glass and winks at me.
I flash her a grin, deciding in that moment that Keira and I are going to become good friends. I love Tasha and Beth. Tasha is always the first to offer to help. Beth might be quieter, but she’s steady and reliable. I wouldn’t be me without them. But they can be heavy sometimes. Their emotions and their worries and their endless talk of their problems. I hate myself for thinking it, but sometimes – only sometimes – it feels like they suck the air right out of the room. I don’t blame them. Life hasn’t been fair. Not with what Tasha has to deal with every day with her parents, or for Beth and her fertility struggles. It’s changed her. The bright woman I met when Nate and I first moved to Magnolia Close ten years ago no longer exists.
There are days when I shut the door after another coffee or playdate and exhale like I’ve been underwater. But Keira looks like she’s all fun. She’s whip-smart but doesn’t strike me as someone who wants to play by the rules, and I love that. So what if she lives outside of the close? Maybe there are things we can learn from her.
Beside me, Keira refills my glass, and I feel her watching, like she’s trying to get the measure of me. I pull my shoulders back and run a hand through my sleek bob. I don’t know what test I’m taking here, but no way am I failing it.
Keira’s charcoaled eyes move to each of us in turn, and when she speaks again, her voice is low like a secret. ‘But would you do it?’ she asks. ‘I mean, if you could get away with it. If there was a way you could never be caught…would you kill your neighbour?’
My reply rushes out without hesitation or thought. ‘I would.’
Keira gives me an approving nod, and even though I’m thirty-nine years old, happily married, confident in who I am, I can’t help but feel myself glow under her praise. ‘Go on then, Georgie,’ she says. ‘How would you kill this Jonny fella?’
